ALASTAIR SIM
(1900-1976)

A tall, stooping character actor with a doleful
expression, droll wit and air of bewilderment, Alastair Sim was
born in Edinburgh, Scotland on October 9, 1900, the youngest of
four children. His father was Alexander Sim and his mother
was Isabella McIntyre. His father owned his own tailor's
shop and the family lived in rooms above. Alastair went to
school in Bruntisfield and to Gillespie's School, where his
father was a JP and a governor of the school. He left
school at 14 and worked as a messenger in his father's tailoring
shop and later worked at Gieves, men's outfitters, where he sold
ties. In 1918 he studied to be an analytical
chemist at Edinburgh University. He then joined the
Officer's Training Corp. but the Armistice came just before he
was sent out to the front. When he was released from the
OTC, he lived rough for a year in the Highlands, finding
employment with a group of migrants who did farm work.
Eventually he returned to Edinburgh and worked in the
Borough Assessor's Office.

In his early '20s, Alastair became a student at the
Edinburgh Provincial Training Centre at Moray House, through
which he obtained a post as the Fulton Lecturer in Elocution at
New College, Edinburgh University from 1925 through 1930,
teaching budding parsons how to speak. After his fame as
an actor, he was elected a Rector of Edinburgh University from
1948 through 1951, beating out Harold Wilson by 2078 votes to
802 and was awarded an honorary LLD at the conclusion of his
term.

He met his wife, Naomi Plaskitt when they were appearing in
an amateur production of THE LAND OF HEARTS DESIRE by William
Butler Yeats. He was 27 and she was 12. When she
turned 14, Naomi enrolled at Alastair's own School of Drama and
Speech Training where she also worked as his secretary.
They married when Naomi turned 18 in August 1932.
She wrote an autobiography in 1987 entitled Dance and
Skylark: Fifty Years With Alistair Sim and details of
Alastair's life and career are mainly from this, as well as
WHO'S WHO IN THE THEATRE and Internet sources, such as the
Internet Movie Data Base plus the personal knowledge and
research of my friend in Australia, Ray Stanley. (The
title of Naomi's book refers to an old naval order given in
sailing ships when the vessel was becalmed).

After acting in amateur productions until he was 29,
Alastair hoped to become a professional director but was advised
by John Drinkwater, poet, playwright and producer and general
manager of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, that his best
chance was to try to become an actor first, and work up to
directing in time. Through this contact, he got his first
role in OTHELLO and moved to London.

During WWII, Alastair and Naomi relocated to the country,
first to Egypt Cottage and later to a place they had built and
named "Forrigan" located at Newnham Hill, Henley-on-Thames,
Oxon. They took in children who were sent away from London
because of fear of the bombs dropping during the blitz.
Among these was George Cole,
who became practically a foster son. Alastair and George
appeared in 11 films together and at least 9 West End plays,
plus another which Alastair directed. Alastair and Naomi
had one child of their own in August 1940, a daughter named
Merlith . Also during the War, Alastair toured with ENSA
(Entertainments National Service Association, which did one play
at a time and played for only one night at each service camp).

Best remembered nowadays for his definitive portrayal of
Ebenezer Scrooge, and by me in particular for his portrayal of
the ladylike Miss Fritton, headmistress of that blight on the
English school system, St. Trinian's, Alastair had an extensive
stage career. He directed and appeared in a number of
plays by Dr. Osborne Henry Mavor of Glasgow, whose pen name was
James Bridie (who died in 1951 after a short illness).
Michael Gilbert, the thriller writer, wrote three plays
for Alastair, A CLEAN KILL, THE BARGAIN and WINDFALL.

Alastair was awarded the CBE in 1953 and later offered a
knighthood but turned it down. He enjoyed tennis,
swimming, bridge and games of chance. He died on August 19, 1976
of throat cancer at University College Hospital, London.
He left his body for anatomical research.

His stage career included:

1930 OTHELLO, Savoy Theatre.
Alastair made his professional stage debut May 19, 1930
as the Messenger. He also understudied Othello, Iago and
Roderigo for £5 a week. The production starred Paul
Robeson, Peggy Ashcroft and Ralph Richardson.

1930 CAVIARE, Little Theatre, revue.
Alastair played the Second Commissar in a a comic sketch
entitled WHOLLY RUSSIA.

1931 BETRAYAL by Leonid Andreyev at the
Little Theatre. Alastair played Vasiliy Also in
the cast were Flora Robson, Reginald Tate, Robert Edison and
Margaret Rawlings.

1931 THE VENETIAN by Clifford Bax at the
Little Theatre. Alastair played Cardinal Ferdinando di Medici
in this drama about the Medicis. His first role as one
of the principals. Also in the cast were Wilfred Walter,
Margaret Rawlings, Miriam Adams, Esme Hubbard, Gwendolyn
Hammond, Ivan Brant, Gabriel Toney, John Flenley, Pascoe
Thornton, Michael Curwen, John Clements, Henry Thomas and
Catherine Lacey. The play was based upon one of the
numerous romantic episodes in the history of the Medici.
A contemporary review in THEATRE WORLD singled out
Alastair as giving "an impressive rendering of the
unscrupulous, scheming Cardinal." On October 31, 1931,
Alastair made his New York debut in this same role at the
Masque Theatre, his only appearance in America.

1932-3 Alastair played two seasons at the Old Vic
where Harcourt Williams directed and Ralph Richardson played
the leads the first season; the second season was led by
Malcolm Kean and Peggy Ashcroft. The plays changed every
3 weeks. During this time he played:

1933 AS YOU DESIRE ME, by Luigi
Pirandello, Gate Theatre. A woman is missing for 10
years having been attacked and abducted during World War I.
Her husband has been looking for her all this time and
when he discovers the woman he believes is his wife, her
current lover, Carl Salter (Alastair) refuses to let her go,
shooting himself in his desire to keep her. Salter
locates a woman in an insane asylum who he believes is the
missing woman and the two possible long lost brides come face
to face in the third act. I can't say that things are
brought to a successful conclusion by the end, but a
surprising twist does occur.

1933 THE ROSE WITHOUT A THORN, an
historical play by Clifford Bax, Duke of York's Theatre.
Alastair played Sir Thomas Audley in a production that
portrayed Henry VIII as an idealist in search of the woman of
his dreams.

1934 THE MAN WHO WAS FED UP by Frederick
Witney, Vaudeville Theatre. Alastair played Donald
Geddes, a comic Scotsman in a story about a successful
stockbroker who, tired of the dreary world in which he earns
his living, decides to enter a monastery. Also in the
cast were Zena Howard, Basil Foster and Peggy Simpson.

1934 THE LIFE THAT I GAVE HIM, Little
Theatre. Alastair played Don Giorgio in this Luigi
Pirandello melodrama, on a double bill with:

1934 YOUTH AT THE HELM by Hubert Freeling
Griffith, Westminster Theatre. Alastair played
Ponsonby, a pompous bank manager in this farcical comedy. Also
in the cast were Jack Melford, Vera Lennox and O.B. Clarence.

1934 ALICE IN WONDERLAND, Duke of York's
Theatre. Alastair played the Mad Hatter.

1935 YOUTH AT THE HELM, this time at the
Globe Theatre, where Alastair again played Ponsonby.
Also in the cast were Owen Nares, Adele Dixon, Kay
Hammond and O.B. Clarence.

1937 THE SQUEAKER by Edgar Wallace,
Strand Theatre. Alastair played the crime reporter
Joshua Collie in the revival of this thriller and recreated
the character in the 1937 film version.

1937 THE GUSHER by Ian Hay, Prince's
Theatre. Alastair played Peter Bogle, another comic
Scotsman in this mystery/adventure play about an oil strike.
Also in the cast were Christine Barry, Coral Browne,
Joan Hickson, Bernard Lee, Jack Livesey, Henry Thompson, Cyril
Smith, Percy Parsons, Ivan Samson an Harold Franklin, among a
cast of 70! Over 17 scenes, this is the tale of the
search for hidden treasure in the form of oil. The
heroic party escapes death at the hands of the natives
(complete with witch doctor) and the villain is rolled over a
cliff's edge. From a contemporary review in THEATRE
WORLD: "One of the best scenes is the coroner's court .
. . It is here that Alastair Sim, as Peter Bogle, first
puts in an appearance as a dour and argumentative member of
the jury ... Mr Sim proves to be a tower of strength on
the comedy side."

1939 OLD MASTER by Alexander Knox at the
Malvern Festival. Alastair played Vane Barra, a painter
whose every future painting has been contracted to rascally
art dealer Ernest Thesiger. Barra fakes his death in
order to escape his contract, which also has the effect of
making his existing paintings appreciate in value. The
September 1939 issue of THEATRE WORLD wrote that Alastair
played the painter "so that one can smell the oil." Also
in the cast were Margaret Withers, Daphne Pounce, Frederick
Bradshaw, Betty Marsden and Olive Milbourne.

1940 WHAT SAY THEY... by James Bridie,
Golder's Green. Alastair played Professor Hayman, clerk
of the senate, in this comedy of university life.

1940 COTTAGE TO LET by Geoffrey Kerr,
Wyndham's Theatre, also reopened in May 1941. Alastair
played Charles Dimble in this spy thriller and recreated this
role in the 1941 film version. The plot involved a
scientist (Leslie Banks) whose scatty wife has a small evacuee
(George Cole, then only 15) landed on her and puts him into
the cottage in her garden, where she has already let a room to
an apparently amiable and rather bumbling Scotsman (Alastair)
who says he is a writer. The Scotsman is in reality a
German spy and is out to get the scientist, or is he?
The evacuee, a keen follower of Sherlock Holmes, unmasks
the villain. Also in the cast were Thorley Walters,
Pamela Nell, C. Jervis-Walter, Gillian Lind, George Butler,
Peter Rosser, Fred Groves, Alfred Atkins, Wallace Evennett,
Charles Mortimer, Albert Chevalier and Robert Field. When the
theatres were closed briefly during WWII, this production
toured army camps to entertain the troops during 1940 and
1941.

1942 HOLY ISLE by James Bridie, Arts
Theatre. Alastair directed. This was a fantasy set
in the Orkneys circa 500 A.D. in which a businessman, a friar,
a queen and a spirited young man find themselves castaways on
an inhabited primitive island; although they attempt to
promote the benefits of their modern values, they are instead
won over by the islanders' peaceful and relaxed way of life.
The cast included Graveley Edwards, Emrys Jones,
Margretta Scott, Norman Shelley, Vivienne, Bennett, A. Bromley
Davenport and Herbert Lomas.

1943 MR. BOLFRY by James Bridie,
Westminster Theatre. Alastair produced and directed the
play and portrayed Mr. McCrimmon, a "Calvinist minister,
suddenly confronted with a large and extremely real Devil,
conjured up by his atheistic niece and a young soldier
billettee" (Alfie Bass). Also in the cast were Sophie
Stewart and Raymond Lovell (replaced by Walter Fitzgerald) as
the title character, "a Duke of the Infernal Regions".
In a later revival, Alastair played the devil.
(George Cole took over the Alfie Bass role, when he was called
up for military service).

1944 IT DEPENDS WHAT YOU MEAN by James
Bridie at the Westminster Theatre. Alastair directed
this comedy, partly set in an Army camp where the padre, Rev.
William Paris (Alastair) has got together several local
people to entertain the troops by putting on a "Brains Trust"
quiz in any Army Recreation Hut, answering questions from the
audience. The padre is the Question Master and the
audience are meant to be the soldiers in the camp. The
padre's secretary asks "is marriage a good idea?" and this
leads to great and glorious trouble when it seems that an
illicit relationship between two members of the Brains Trust
may be disclosed. All hell breaks loose and a fight
breaks out. Alastair had to vault over a big table at
each performance to stop the fight. Also in the cast
were Margret Barton, Wilfred Hyde-White, Angela Baddeley,
Oliver Johnston, Nuna Davey, Walter Ray, O.B. Clarence and
Alec Faversham. Later filmed under the title of FOLLY TO
BE WISE.

1945 THE FORRIGAN REEL by James Bridie,
Sadler's Wells Theatre. Alastair produced the play
and portrayed Old MacAlpin. In the 18th century the wife
of a Highland laird believes she is a clock. A party of
titled nobs tour the Highlands in the hopes that travel will
cure their daughter of the vapours. Both these ladies
are eventually cured by two drunken tinkers, father (Alastair)
and son (Duncan McRae), who get them dancing the reel.
Also in the cast were Eric Fort, Geoffrey Dunn, Ian
Wallace, Molly Urquhart and Joan Sterndale Bennett.

1946 DEATH OF A RAT by Jan de Hartog,
Lyric, Hammersmith Theatre. The play is about two
scientists engaged in cancer research. The elder pricks
his finger during an experiment on a rat and knows his death
is imminent. The younger is disillusioned and thinking
of giving up research in light of the war in Europe. The
older man tries to persuade him to stick with his work.
Alastair played Wouterson, the younger researcher, as an
absent-minded professor. Also in the cast were Pamela
Brown and Robert Harris.

1946 PETER PAN, Scala Theatre.
Alastair played Captain Hook . Also in the cast
were Mary Morris as Peter, John Derrick as Mr. Darling and
Donald Pleasance as Gentleman Starkey.

1947 DR. ANGELUS by James Bridie,
Phoenix Theatre. Alastair produced and directed the play
and appeared in the title role. The play was a burlesque
of a comedy-thriller based on a famous Glasgow murderer, Dr.
E.W. Pritchard, who poisoned his wife and mother-in-law and
was the first man to have a public hanging on Glasgow Green in
1865. Set in 1919, when the play opens Dr. Angelus
(Alastair) is supposedly trying to cure his mother-in-law who
is very ill, but he is, in fact, stuffing her full of antimony
and when she dies, he asks the new young partner, Johnson
(George Cole) to sign the death certificate. When Mrs.
Angelus becomes ill with the same symptoms Johnson gets very
anxious indeed, and when she dies, Johnson refuses to sign the
death certificate, culminating in a battle of wills between
the two physicians. Also in the cast were Molly
Urquhart, Betty Marsden, Charles Carson, Jane Aird, Archie
Duncan and Rex Garner. The play appeared on BBC
Television in 1948 and was one of the first theatrical plays
to appear on TV following its stage run.

1948 THE ANATOMIST by James Bridie,
Westminster Theatre. Alastair produced this play about
the infamous body snatchers, Burke and Hare, and appeared as
Dr. Knox. Also in the cast were George Cole as Walter
Anderson and Michael Ripper as Hare. All three appeared
in the 1961 film version.

1950 MR. GILLIE by James Bridie, Garrick
Theatre. Alastair produced and directed the play and
appeared in the title role. The local schoolmaster (Alastair)
in a Scottish mining village has a passionate desire to
encourage and foster any talents that he may discover among
his pupils, to get them out of their awful environment, to set
them free and help to launch them on some wonderful future.
He himself is a failure by society's standards. He
encourages Tom (George Cole) and Nellie (Janet Brown) to get
married, to go to London and take the world by the throat, and
after a year they return. Tom has become a spiv and is
working for a wealthy, small-time crook whose mistress Nellie
has become. Alastair's favorite play reflecting his own
passionate faith in the young and his belief that they must be
supported and encouraged since they are our only hope. This
production was also performed on BBC Television but not until
1960, again with Alastair in the title role.

1955 MISERY ME! by Dennis Cannon at the
Duchess Theatre. Alastair directed a cast which included
Philip Stainton, Eileen Moore, Yvonne Mitchell, George Cole,
Clive Morton and Colin Gordon. A contemporary review in
THEATRE WORLD praised the "superb satiric wit and delicious
turn of phrase. . . This is a story of a young man whose
desire to commit suicide is turned into a desire to live when
he falls in love. The action takes place in a
mid-European mountain inn of pseudo simplicity during a night
when the innkeeper's wife is giving birth."

1956 MR. BOLFRY, a revival of the James
Bridie play at the Aldwych. This time Alastair directed
and played the title role. Sophie Stewart recreated her
original role of the Minister's wife; George Cole and Owen
Holder played soldiers billeted at the Free Kirk Manse in the
wilds of the West Highlands. Duncan Macrae played the
straight-laced minister, the role Alastair originally played,
who has the misfortune to have an encounter with the Devil in
his own parlor.

1958 THE BRASS BUTTERFLY a comedy by
William Golding, opened February 24, 1958 at the New Theatre,
Oxford., then the Strand, London An aging Roman emperor
(Alastair) on his isle of Capri retreat is visited by an
inventor (George Cole) who wants his patronage to help him
with his work. The inventor has discovered how to
harness the force of steam and tries to persuade the emperor
to make use of it to power his ships. However, the
emperor is content to use the steam to cook his fish in a
pressure cooker. The inventor has also invented
explosives but the emperor can't imagine a use for something
that "claps out". The heir designate leads a palace
revolt, and the inventor's sister removes the "safety catch"
on the explosive, which the inventor calls a "brass
butterfly". When the bomb goes off it destroys the
emperor's enemies and he is suitably grateful, but when the
inventor discovers printing, the emperor thinks the scope for
self-expression on this scale should be suppressed, so he
sends the inventor off as his Envoy Extraordinary on a slow
boat to China. Also in the cast were Jeremy Spenser, Jack
Hedley, George Selway, Eileen Moore and Geoffrey Matthews.

1961 THE BARGAIN by Michael Gilbert, St.
Martin's Theatre. Alastair directed and starred in this
comedy about an upright solicitor (Alastair) blackmailed for
trying to buy on the cheap a Goya miniature which, unknown to
him, has been stolen from one of his own clients. Also
in the cast were George Cole as the blackmailer and Janet
Brown as his Moll, Helen Christie and Peter Copley.

1962 THE TEMPEST, opened May 29,
1962 at the Old Vic, London. Alastair played Prospero.
Also in the cast were Eileen Atkins, Stephen Thorne,
Sylvia Coleridge and Patrica Jessel.

1962 WINDFALL by Michael Gilbert, Lyric
Theatre. About a boy's school saved from going bankrupt
by the mathematical genius of one of the younger boys.
Alastair played Alexander Lindsay, the housemaster, and
Merlith played his daughter.

1963 PETER PAN, Scala Theatre.
Alastair again played Captain Hook.

1964 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, Nottingham
Playhouse. Alastair played Shylock. Also in the
cast were Michael Cadman and Gemma Jones.

1965 THE ELEPHANT'S FOOT by William
Trevor. Alastair directed and played Freer.
Also in the cast were Roger Livesey, Ursula Jeans
and Richard Kay.

1965 TOO TRUE TO BE GOOD by George
Bernard Shaw directed by Frank Dunlop, opened October 22, 1965
at the Strand Theatre. Alastair played Colonel Tallboys.
Also in the cast were Dora Bryan, James Bolam, George
Cole , June Ritchie, Athene Seyler, Anthony Oliver and Kenneth
Haigh. The story was of a rich and bored young woman who finds
two burglars in her bedroom. Instead of handing them
over to the police, she runs off with them to live on the
proceeds of burglary. When that does not relieve the
problems of her life, she turns to religion.

1966 THE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE by
David Garrick, Chichester. Alastair played Lord Ogleby, an
aged roué who believes that all young women fall madly in
love with him. During a dull spot in the play, the
65-year old Sim slid down a curved stairway at great speed.
Also in the cast were Sarah Badel, Margaret Rutherford
and Ann Beach.

1967 NUMBER 10 by Ronald Millar, Strand
Theatre. Alastair costarred as the Prime Minister with
husband-and-wife team Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray and John
Gregson about a political crisis that arises when the
president of an African state illegally takes control of a
British mining factory.

1968 PETER PAN, Scala Theatre.
Alastair again played Captain Hook.

1968 THE MAGISTRATE by Miguel Pinero, at
the Chichester Festival. Possket, the Magistrate
(Alastair) is taken out on the town by his young stepson
(Christopher Guinee) and falls into one scrape after another
before they become separated. He staggers back to his
own court early the next morning, before his clerk arrives, in
a pitiable state. Exhausted from running away from the
police, his face and hands filthy, his hair on end, and his
evening clothes torn and muddled, he tries to wash and dress
in too much of a hurry and one thing after another goes wrong
in this farce. Patricia
Routledge played the Magistrate's wife. Also in
the cast were director John Clements, Michael Aldridge, Robert
Coote and Renee Asherson. According to Sim's wife, this
is the best thing he ever did in his life. The show
later transferred to the Cambridge Theatre September 1969.
I was contacted by Steve Crook who remembers seeing a
clip from this play during the TV series HEROES OF COMEDY.
He described Alastair on "the morning after, washing in
front of the mirror. He wags his finger at the image in
the mirror, asking 'Who was naughty?' The finger
hesitates, slowly turns to point to himself and then he puts
it to his lower lip with a lovely, hang-dog look."

1970 THE JOCKEY CLUB STAKES by William
Douglas Home, Vaudeville Theatre. Alastair played the
Marquis of Candover, the senior Jockey Club steward.
Also in the cast were Geoffrey Sumner and Robert Coote.
Writing in PLAYS AND PLAYERS, Sheridan Morley wrote, Sim
"pops his eyes and quivers his chin as if treble takes were
going to be imminently rationed".

1972 SIEGE by David Ambrose,
Cambridge Theatre. Alastair played Willy, an ex-prime
minister whose nightmare of subversive activities overwhelming
London seems to come to pass. Also in the cast were
Stanley Holloway and Michael Bryant

1973 A PRIVATE MATTER by Ronald Mavor,
opened February 21, 1973 at the Vaudeville Theatre.
Alastair played Mervyn Dakins in a play that examines
the strains within the Black family when an Oxford Don visits
their home, intending to write a biography of the late General
Black. Also in the cast were Peter Cellier and Dorothy
Reynolds. Ian McKellan directed. Writing in PLAYS
AND PLAYERS, Sheridan Morley wrote, "Mr. Sim irrigates the
dialogue with doses of Machiavellian charm".

1973 DANDY DICK by Arthur Wing Pinero.
Alastair played Augustine Jedd opposite Patricia
Routledge, Richard Owens, Gemma Craven, Geoffrey Beevers and
Barry McGinn, directed by John Clements at the Chichester
Festival. This is a period comedy about a censorious
clergyman whose sister (Routledge) owns a half interest in the
racehorse Dandy Dick. When the beast gets chilled, the
clergyman administers a remedy to it (in the hopes that a bet
he intends to place on it will win him the money to cover a
pledge he's made to restore the church spire) but he is
arrested when he's mistaken for the person who set fire to the
stables. It all ends happily with the clergyman's
daughters and sister engaged, and the debts of all covered by
winnings of the race. Pat Routledge said about Alastair:
To be on stage with him was an education. When he
reached that pitch of obsession with a situation, however
absurd, there was nothing he could not do with those staring
eyes, that jabbing finger, the swoops and wobbles of his
voice. Playing opposite him taught me so much. The
show later transferred to the Garrick Theatre in October 1973.
Writing in PLAYS AND PLAYERS, Sheridan Morley opined,
Sim "can do more with a shudder of his shoulders than most
others with HAMLET and ought soon to be given over to the
National Theatre."

1975 THE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE by George
Colman and David Garrick, Savoy Theatre, directed by Ian
McKellan. Alastair recreated his role of Lord Ogleby
costarring with Ron Moody and Dandy Nichols.

The first of Alastair's comic Scottish police
sidekicks. This is a story of a tontine, 5 men who
made a pact to share their profits. As
the deadline approaches, they are killed off one by one.
Basil Sydney plays the policeman in charge of the
case, whose investigation is complicated by a pushy girl
reporter.

Alastair had a cameo as a phony medium duping a
gullible old lady who is trying to communicate with
the spirit of the father of Edward Everett Horton,
a mild mannered and naive reverend who is the new
secretary of a country squire. Based on a
British stage comedy by Charles Hawtrey adapted
from a German play. This was first
performed in 1884 by Herbert Beerbohm Tree.

The first of Alastair's comic newspaper men.
He plays a 20-year veteran on a London newspaper,
whose prize possession is an umbrella he was given at
the 15 year mark; he also takes up collections for
reporters who are fired or retire.
The plot involves cub reporter James Mason
striking lucky on his first assignment which leads to
the capture of an escaped cop killer.

Alastair's first film with THE CRAZY GANG.
He plays the shifty manager of a department store
that is about to go bankrupt because he's been
cooking the books. The Crazy Gang have just
got out of jail after serving 10 years for a jewel
robbery and discover the department store has been built
over the field where they buried the loot.
Alastair learns of the gang's criminal past
and hires them for a spot of arson.

Alastair played a stern minister in
this story set in a Scottish manse at the time
of the Crimean War.
Alastair's wife, Naomi, played Jessie the
Maid, the only film in which they appeared together.
Fay Compton played Florence Nightingale.

Edward Everett Horton plays a timid stockbroker
whose image emerges from a mirror and does a better job
of living his life both at home and at work. He
wines and dines an Eastern potentate whose
country has large deposits of nitrate, but the
Bogus of Bokhara turns out to be a phony pulling a
hoax. Alastair plays Mannering, the turbaned
interpreter, spewing a lot of gobbledygook.

Another version of the Russian tale on which
THE TWELVE CHAIRS and IT'S IN THE BAG were based.
Alastair plays a lawyer who schemes to get his
hands on the chair in which his late client hid jewels
and bonds before the true heir, the penniless
George Formby, can get the chairs.

Jessie Matthews is a film reviewer who longs
to report hard news. Her editor gets her a job as
a maid to a movie star in the hopes of stealing the
star's diary. Scotland Yard is looking for a jewel
thief called Sparkle who often masquerades as a
maid, and they suspect Jessie, and so does
the insurance investigator played by Alastair, who
is undercover as a steward on the ocean liner where
Jessie winds up through plot complications.

This was an Edgar Wallace thriller which Alastair
had performed on stage and then got to do in the film.
He played another comic Scotsman, a newspaper reporter.
The title refers to a sort of underworld crime-lord who
is both a fence and an informer; when thieves bring him
their ill gotten loot, he quotes them low prices and if
they don't accept, he turns them in to Scotland Yard.
Jewel thief Robert Newton recognizes him and so gets
shot. Edmund Lowe is a former Scotland Yard inspector
who goes undercover to break the case. Wonderfully
atmospheric black and white photography, fabulous
glimpses of 1937 London and great sinister music.

This is a fast paced crime comedy set in the
newsroom of a London newspaper. Alastair played
the excitable Scots editor who fires crack reporter
Barry K. Barnes for refusing an assignment because
he's obsessed with a mob stool pigeon. The
reporter gets drunk and phones in a phony story of the
criminal's murder, which the editor prints, but it comes
true, and the reporter is arrested on suspicion of
murder after the murder weapon is found in
his apartment. It soon becomes clear the
reporter's life is in danger, and eventually
Alastair's character is wounded in an attempt on the
reporter's life. There is even a sort of James
Bond prototype supercriminal with a hair lip, whose face
is withheld from the camera, so that all you can see is
the pet mice he caresses as they crawl in his arms.
Alastair had a funny bit where he sings
COMING THROUGH THE RYE as he shaves in the bath.

Roland Young, head of Gulliver Soup, discovers
Jessie Matthews singing and dancing on a barge.
Jessie has always wanted to be on the stage, and
Young arranges to launch her career. Alastair
played a friend of Young's, an eccentric painter who
specializes in abstracts, but after being exposed to the
down to earth common sense of Jessie, he produces a
representative painting of a cow and meadow.

Alastair plays a minion of a supercriminal who
masterminded a gold theft and then ratted on his two
henchmen. After these fall guys get out of
jail 10 years later, they show up at a priory that is
being used as a hotel and features a number of
eccentrics. When Alastair's criminal cohort winds
up dead, Alastair masquerades as a clergyman in the
hopes of getting his share of the loot.
The supercriminal turns out to be insane, and good
fun is had with secret panels and underground passages.
Kathleen Harrison and Irene Handl have small
roles as servants. Based on an Edgar Wallace play.

Centuries after the magic lamp of Aladdin is
buried, it is dug up by a plowing Chinaman and sold to a
gullible G.I. who donates it to a WWII metal scrap drive
where it is melted down and made into buttons for marine
uniforms. Some indigent street performers
(the Crazy Gang) get shanghaied into joining
the marines and one, Alf Higgins, winds up with the
button on his uniform. Alastair played the genie
in an impossibly high hat. At first he has trouble
discerning what the Cockney lads want, but when Alf
sends him to the movies to find out about 1937, he comes
back as a tough talking gangster type.

Alastair played a comic communist forced to take
a job as a male model in order to pay the rent.
His first posing job is a "before" in a leopard
loincloth against a muscle builder's "after". He
gets Jessie Matthews a modeling job as well, and
she falls for Michael Redgrave who is engaged to a
society dame he doesn't want to marry, especially after
he falls for Jessie.

Alastair plays a bumbling comic police sergeant to
Gordon Harker's Inspector. They investigate a
murder which leads to the discovery of a plot to profit
by advance knowledge of the U.K. budget, details
of which have been stolen by the clever switching
of the budget bag of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Alastair's sergeant always leaps to the wrong
conclusion while Hornleigh, like Sherlock Holmes,
manages to figure out what has happened on
virtually no evidence. Alastair has a nice scene
in an atmospheric alley where he is stalked by the
murderer. Successful enough to spawn two sequels.

Alastair recreated his police sergeant role in
the second of the three INSPECTOR HORNLEIGH films.
He and the Inspector go on vacation together
to Brighton, where it rains the entire time. While
there, they stumble upon a murder which, upon
investigation, leads to a gang who fake deaths in order
to defraud insurance companies. Alastair has
several wonderful scenes, including one where he's in
the lair of the gang and, answering the phone, pretends
to be one of them, not realizing Inspector
Hornleigh is on the other end of the line, disguising
his voice. Gordon Harker gets to impersonate a
Harley Street physician and an old sailor. Quite a
clever plot and atmospheric music during some
suspenseful sequences.

Alastair recreated his police sergeant role in
the last of the three INSPECTOR HORNLEIGH films.
He and Hornleigh go undercover in the army to find
out who is scrounging goods to resell, but accidentally
get onto a network selling information to the Germans.
Alastair has to impersonate a dentist (and remove
two teeth) and gets to fall for two unsuitable women.
The ending takes place on a mail train where
Hornleigh narrowly escapes sudden death when he
has to climb outside of the train to break into the
compartment next door.

Alastair and George Cole recreated their roles from
the stage version of this spy thriller set in Scotland.
A scientist (Leslie Banks) working on a bomb
sight for the war effort and his dotty wife are also
housing a bunch of suspicious characters who may be
German spies or Scotland Yard undercover men. It
would be giving away a plot twist to say more than that
Alastair plays a tenant at the cottage.

Alastair's first J.B. Priestly film is a
socially conscious comedy about a Yorkshire music hall
which some townspeople want to be made into a museum and
others want as a showroom for a plastics factory.
Alastair plays an illegal Czech immigrant
whose outsider's view of the freedoms enjoyed
by the English contributes to the arbitrator's
decision.

John Mills played an AWOL soldier who spends the
day looking for his discontented wife, who is being
wooed by ne'er do well Stewart Granger. Alastair
played the avuncular neighborhood doctor who narrates
the tale, patches up Mills when he gets hurt in a
scuffle and tips him off where to find Granger.
Click here
for BFI webpage.

Alastair played a Scotland Yard detective who
investigates a double murder at a war time hospital.
Although this is a mystery, there is a thread of
comedy running through it, and Alastair gets a couple of
nice scenes, such as the one where he peeks at the last
page of a mystery novel, confident he knows the
murderer, but turns out to be wrong. The structure
of the piece is a report Alastair's detective is
dictating, so at times he narrates in scenes before his
character appears. Click here
for BFI webpage.

You wouldn't know it from the comedic music under
the opening credits (clever use of graffiti for these
titles) but this is a rousing adventure film. A
bright lad who is looking for his first job stumbles
upon the use of a weekly illustrated thriller to give
coded instructions to a gang. With the help of his
friends, he manages to figure out how the instructions
get into the paper and plant new instructions which lead
to the round up of the entire gang. Although
Alastair is top billed, he has only 3 scenes, two of
them very short. He plays the author of the serial
who has no idea it is being used by a gang and, when he
finds out, he is so terrified, he has to be blackmailed
by one of the boys into planting the instructions which
lead to the capture of the gang. This film is
practically a time capsule of post-WWII London, with its
scenes at Covent Garden back when it was still a flower
and vegetable market, and the many shots of the rubble
strewn streets. The climactic battle with the
master criminal takes place in a bombed out building and
is full of sinister shadows. The real lead of the
film is Harry Fowler who plays the plucky boy who
figures out what is going on and stands up to the master
criminal. Click here
for BFI webpage.

This is based on a true story set in early 19th
century Ireland about a demanding landlord (Cecil
Parker) who evicts tenant farmers from their homes.
The town bands together and shuns him, refusing to
work for him, and when the army is called in to protect
the volunteers who arrive to harvest his crops, they
soon turn against him as well. Alastair played the
town priest who preaches moderation.

This is a film about the residents of an
apartment house in Dulcimer Street. When Richard
Attenborough is tempted into a life of crime, he
accidentally murders a casual girlfriend, and
when the police arrest him, the residents rally
around. Alastair played a phony medium who
accidentally overhears enough to deduce that
Attenborough will be arrested, and uses this information
to pretend to predict that it will happen.
Click here
for the BFI webpage.

Margaret Rutherford is the headmistress of a girls'
school, St. Swithin, billeted in error during the war at
a boys' school, Nutbourne College, whose headmaster is
Alastair. At first the staffs of the
two schools are at loggerheads, but when the
parents of some of the girls arrive to
tour the school on the same day as the
governors of a college Sim hopes to be appointed to, the
two schools cooperate by creating two separate
tours which require split second timing, the
parents seeing only the girls and the governors
seeing only the boys. Also in the cast is Joyce
Grenfell and in a tiny cameo, George
Cole as an underling on the maintenance staff at the
Ministry of Education. Many otherwise
knowledgeable people mistake this for one of the St.
Trinian's films. It is not. It was based on
a play by John Dighton which also starred Margaret
Rutherford. I believe the mix-up is due to the
fact that Ronald
Searle drawings appear under the
opening credits, this and the St. Trin's films were
presented by Gilliat and Launder; and, of course, this
film and the first St. Trinian's film starred Alastair
and Joyce Grenfell. Joyce was in the first 3 St.
Trinian's films and, after the first one, Alastair had
only a small cameo in the second. Click here
for BFI webpage.

Alastair played the father of Jane Wyman, an acting
student in love with Richard Todd. When Todd comes
to her with a bloody dress, claiming
his girlfriend, Marlene Dietrich, murdered her
husband, Wyman brings Todd to her father to hide out.
Wyman disguises herself as a maid and gets a job
with Dietrich to investigate, and her amazingly
supportive father helps her. They all attend
a theatrical garden party where
Alastair's character gets the idea to confront
Dietrich with a doll whose dress has blood on it.
The scene where he first tries to buy and then to
win this doll at a shooting gallery run by Joyce
Grenfell is a comic highlight.
The ending takes place in a theatre where the
police arrange for Todd and Dietrich to confront each
other, and the true murderer is revealed.

Alastair had an unbilled cameo as a down on his
luck movie director whom aspiring starlet Pauline Stroud
comes to looking for a job. George Cole played Stroud's
boyfriend who doesn't like her going into show business.
A cynical look into beauty pageants
and the unglamorous life of struggling show biz
personalities.

A practical joker (Hugh Griffin) dies and leaves a
great deal of money to several relatives,
provided they each fulfill one difficult condition,
all different. Alastair played a stuffy and
conventional writer who must get himself arrested
and sent to prison for 28 days. First he tries
shoplifting but he's so spectacularly unsuccessful
he winds up with his pocket picked. The
shoplifting scenes were shot on the ground floor of Swan
& Edgar on a Sunday. Alastair pinches one
thing after another but no one pays any attention
to him. Then he tries stealing a car, but
picks one with a vicious dog inside. Finally he
tosses a brick through a shop window and when he comes
up for trial, the judge is his potential father-in-law.
Joyce
Grenfell played his snooty finance.
They are due to be married in two weeks and in
order to get her to postpone the wedding and
account for his disappearance, he leads her to
believe he is a spy. Joyce is in the military
herself and falls for this hook, line and sinker, only
to return his ring when he insults her father in court
in order to lengthen his prison sentence to the amount
required by the terms of the Will. George
Cole played a timid bank clerk whose task in the Will is
to hold up the bank. Click here
for the BFI webpage.

Judging from the number of "hits" using ILOR as a
search engine, this is everyone's favorite
Christmas movie and certainly the most faithful and
beloved version of the timeless Dickens tale
of a miserly man visited on Christmas Eve by the spirit
of his late partner, as well as the ghosts of
Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas to Come.
A heart tugger whose moral is it's never too late
for redemption.. Also in the cast
is George Cole, playing Scrooge in the
Christmas Past flashback.

Alastair played an official attending a U.N.
economic conference who wins a diplomatic victory over
the Russian delegate during cocktails at a Parisian
nightclub. He is the government official
responsible for limiting the amount of money tourists
can take from the U.K. to France to £5, but he runs up a
bill at a Russian cafe far in excess of that, for which
he has to pay with his gold watch, cufflinks and
cigarette lighter.

Film version of the James Bridie quiz show
comedy IT DEPENDS WHAT YOU MEAN.
Alastair played the well-intentioned clergyman who was
entertainment officer of an army camp. When a
production of CHARLIE'S AUNT falls through,
his secretary gets the idea of a brain's trust, where
local experts answer questions written
in by the soldiers. When
the padre's secretary asks "does marriage work", it
causes a breakdown between two of the married
panelists and the university chum of the husband
who is sweet on the wife. The whole
thing ends in a caravan hurtling toward a
sheer drop off a cliff, with the unlucky
threesome and the padre on board. George Cole
had a brief cameo as a young soldier who, after the
debacle on stage, stands up to praise the event and
request that it be a regular thing.

Alastair plays a mysterious inspector
who interviews a prosperous Yorkshire family
in 1912 and gets each member to admit that their
class snobbery is partly responsible for the death
of a young girl. Designed to prick people's social
conscience. George Cole had a cameo has a tram
conductor.

Alastair plays a kestrel-loving laird whose
gamekeeper was a small lad who sent away for body
building lessons and grew into brawny Bill Travers.
He wins a local hammer throwing contest and is
asked to be on the British Olympic team for
the Australian games.

Alastair played the headmaster of a boys' boarding
school who tries to find out what secret mission some
boys undertake which turns out to involve
stealing a plane to present a peace proposal to the
Four Powers.

A mild mannered hired assassin (Alastair)
specializes in explosions. He plans to do one more job
before he retires, but his plans are thwarted by a
vacuum cleaner salesman (George Cole, very amusing with
his sale pitch of the Little Wizard Electro Broom which
"disinfects as it beats as it sweeps as it cleans").
Cole discovers what he thinks is a dead body in a piano
but the body turns up alive after overhearing that her
politician boss (Raymond Huntley) is to be killed at the
Green Man pub. Cole and the woman (Jill Adams) to
whom he was demonstrating the vacuum set off to the pub,
not knowing what the assassination target looks like and
mistake Terry-Thomas, a philandering husband, for the
politician who is also there for a dirty weekend.
Based on a stage play by Frank Launder and Sidney
Gilliat entitled MEET A BODY. Click here
for BFI webpage.

Alastair played one of four knighted Harley Street
specialists who are consulted by Leslie Caron
who wants them to save the life of her talented
artist husband, Dirk Bogarde who is charming
but morally corrupt. All of the doctors are
themselves charming scoundrels, and look on their
patients not as suffering people but as
sources of interesting research and potential money.
Alastair believes that blood poisoning is the
root of all illness; his speciality is
excising a sac which may, in fact, be
nonexistent in some patients! Talky, like a lot of
Shaw.

Alastair played Stephen Potter (in reality the
author of the faux
instruction book on which this film was based),
the head of the School of Lifemanship, which turns
losers into winners. Ian Carmichael takes the
course, and under Alastair's tutelage, he manages
to put his bossy chief clerk in his place, get the best
of two shady car dealers (Dennis Price and Peter
Jones) and best his rival (Terry-Thomas) not only in
tennis but also for the hand of the girl (Janette Scott)
they're both after. Click here for
the BFI webpage.

Sophia Loren plays the world's richest woman; she
is spoiled and headstrong and has her heart set on
marrying a poor, baffled Indian doctor (Peter Sellers)
but he is unimpressed by her money. Alastair plays
the lawyer who suggested a clause in the will of
Sophia's father about a test for a potential husband;
when Sophia threatens to retreat from the world and
give up men, Alastair figures out a way to get her and
her Indian doctor together.

Ian Carmichael plays his usual befuddled role as a
quiz show celebrity participating in a parliamentary
by-election who falls in love with his opposing
candidate. Richard Wattis and Eric Barker are the
campaign managers for the opponents who team up to
thwart the romance. Alastair plays Carmichael's
uncle who has turned his stately ancestral home into a
theme park a la Longleat.

Alastair, George Cole and Michael Ripper recreated
their stage roles in this TV version of the 1948 James
Bridie play about the infamous Burke and Hare.
Adrienne Corri plays a tart who meets George Cole
in a pub; later that morning, her body is brought
to the mortuary by Burke (Diarmuid Kelly) and
Hare (Michael Ripper) and Cole realizes she has
been murdered, but Dr. Knox (Alastair) talks him out
of going to the police. Six months go by;
Burke is hung on Hare's evidence and the mob comes after
Knox, but the play shows that although Knox realizes
that 16 deaths are on his conscience, his anatomy
students and society still admire him and apparently his
life goes on as always. A study in the
irresponsibility of the upper classes still pertinent
today.

Alastair plays the baffled brother of the 13th
Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews); when the
Earl dies in rather embarrassing circumstances, his
son (Peter O'Toole) is sprung from the loony bin
where he's been confined for years because of his belief
that he is Jesus Christ. The family (William
Mervyn and Coral Brown) marry him off to a music hall
entertainer (Carolyn Seymour) who the 14th Earl
thinks is the fictitious Lady of the Camellias.
At the time of the imminent birth of their child,
the family resorts to shock treatment to jolt O'Toole to
sanity, and it seems to work, in that he no longer
believes himself to be God, but now thinks he is Jack
the Ripper, with murderous results. However, such
is the eccentricity expected of nobility that
the Earl gets away with all his bizarre behavior.
A marvelous satire, with great musical numbers.
Arthur Lowe is wonderful as the bolshy butler who
gets uppity after he inherits some money. See:
http://www.dvdjournal.com/quickreviews/r/rulingclass_cc.q.shtml

This is a 24-minute children's version of the
famous Dickens tale with Alastair as the voice of
Scrooge and Michael Hordern as the voice of
Marley. The limited animation was by Richard
Williams. This won the Oscar for the best
animated short subject in 1973.

This is a grim story about a British nobleman
played by Peter O'Toole, who attempts to assassinate
Hitler in 1939. He is tortured but escapes
Germany; however, upon his return to England, he is
in danger of being killed himself by German agents.
Alastair, as in THE RULING CLASS, plays O'Toole's
uncle, who is someone important in the government. He
has two scenes with O'Toole set in a steam room; in the
first, he is unsympathetic to O'Toole's plight and
advises him to leave the country; in the second, after
O'Toole has taken care of his pursuers, Alastair tells
him all is forgiven and to pop along to the Admiralty
and see Churchill for some job. See: http://www.sover.net/~ozus/roguemale.htm

Alastair played the owner of a mine in Yorkshire,
1909. The mine is losing money so a new manager is
hired who decides to replace the pit ponies with
machinery. When the young boys who tend the ponies
learn they are to be slaughtered, they stage a daring
rescue. Although top billed, Alastair had only a
few scenes.

The only TV shows he appeared in are

MISLEADING
CASES (1967) where he portrayed Stipendary Magistrate
Mr. Swallow. Thorley Walters played opposing counsel Sir
Joshua Hoot and Roy Dotrice was Albert Haddock. This
lasted for 3 series of 19 episodes, the last year (1971) being
in color.

COLD
COMFORT FARM (1971) where he portrayed Amos Starkadder.
Also in the cast were Brian Blessed, Fay Compton,
Fionnula Flanagan and Freddie Jones.

THE
GENERAL'S DAY (1972) by William Trevor. John J.
O'Connor wrote on January 25, 1977: Tonight at 8, the
late Alastair Sim can be seen in a 60-minute play entitled
"General's Day." Written by William Trevor,
playwright and novelist, the piece offers an offbeat
treatment of old age through a character named Adam, a
retired Army general living in a small seaside village. Out
of Harold Pinter, by way of David Storey, the general
marches erectly through a world that is vaguely threatening,
unsettlingly comic. A life-long bachelor, he was a rogue in
his youth and has lost little of his devilish vitality.
In his substantially appointed home, the general does
battle with his incredibly dumpy housekeeper, who arrives
with her parrot, a collection of hideous knickknacks, and a
streak of casual viciousness. She refuses to be dismissed.
He calls her a charwoman, adding that "I dislike having to
remind you of that." She intentionally breaks one of his
bone-china knickknacks. He screams, "You cow!" Going
out to lunch with his album of old photographs under his
arm, the general meets a plain woman who is advancing into
middle age as a teacher at St. Monica's girls' school. It
turns out that the general once gave tennis lessons at the
school but departed when rumors about "cuddling senior
girls" began circulating. He tells the woman, who has
never married, that she is wasting her time at St. Monica's.
She agrees. "Come to Ivy Cottage and housekeep for me," he
says. She finds the whole idea quite preposterous and
leaves. But she returns later on. He recalls his
younger days, the madcap antics mixed with romantic
yearnings and lingering images of feet on cold linoleum. She
remembers her "affair" with a married choirmaster. They met
once a week for eight years, sharing biscuits and instant
coffee out of beakers. The general orders more gins
and tonic. Elsie, as she is called, talks of planting
snowdrops and herbs in a small garden. He, unobtrusively
patting her knee, confesses to being partial to mashed
parsnips with butter. The housekeeper, meanwhile, is still
at the general's home, listening to her portable radio and
replacing his mementos with her knickknacks. The
slight tale drifts to its perhaps inevitable conclusion, a
bit repetitive, somewhat drawn out, but shimmering with fine
performances. Mr. Sim is extraordinary, veering continuously
between dignity and indignation, between elderly charm and
dirty old man. He struts magnificently and leers with
anxious lasciviousness. Beneath the surface of his bravado
is a helpless, moving rage. The other two key roles
are also performed splendidly. Dandy Nichols, who was seen
here on Broadway in David Storey's "Home," plays the
cleaning woman, and is mesmerizing in her projection of
casual and vacuous menace. Annette Crosbie's Elsie is
devastatingly plain, helplessly appealing. "General's Day"
was directed by John Gorrie. Produced for the British
Broadcasting Corporation in 1972, it is a small work,
exquisitely mounted. It is superior television.

THE
PRODIGAL DAUGHTER (1975) where Alastair played Father
Perfect, one of three priests (the others being Jeremy Brett
and Charles Kay) who hire a young housekeeper. Alastair
played a very humanistic priest who hires a young woman
(Carolyn Seymour) not only not Catholic but also who also has
had an abortion. This causes a crisis of faith in Brett,
who ultimately decides to leave the priesthood. Among
the eccentricities of Alastair's character is that he ran his
own amateur radio network and hoped that God would contact him
through it! I am indebted to Diarmid from Scotland who
contacted me to let me know this was an extra on a special
edition DVD he acquired of COTTAGE TO LET.

I have been able to find reference to a 3 record, 2-hour
set of SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER by Oliver Goldsmith with Alastair,
Brenda de Banzie, Alan Howard, Tony Tanner and Claire
Bloom; and Arnold Wengrow kindly told me it was recorded in
1965 by Caedmon. Prints of photos of Alastair are
available from the National
Portrait
Gallery.

Click here
to see a Pathe video of a Ministry of Information fuel
commercial (in rhyme!) starring Sim as Nero being
interrogated by George Cole.

In 2013 George Cole published his autobiography (THE WORLD
WAS MY LOBSTER, published by John Blake). In it, he
reveals that he first noticed Alastair in the cinema when he saw
ALF'S BUTTON AFLOAT (1938). "I was so fascinated by him
that I remember staying to watch the end credits to see what
his name was. Never could I have imagined that within a
couple of years I would be working with him. When I did,
he came across exactly the way I imagined him to be:
benign, avuncular and extremely funny." Cole
adds: "As well as being a born actor, he was a natural
comic. He soon found that, whatever role he was playing,
the audience's attention somehow seemed to become directed
towards him because there was something strangely comic about
him and the audience somehow expected him to be amusing.
Many of his most memorable performances on stage and screen
after that were comic roles. He was a big man, standing
just under six feet tall, with a larger-than-life
personality. He had the most amazing talent for making
people laugh without saying anything inherently funny."

Writing of

COTTAGE TO LET, Cole states: "The experience of
working with seasoned professionals such as Alastair ... had
a profound effect on me, especially the way Alastair could
convincingly change his character in a split second from a
humorous bumbling Scotsman to a seemingly sinister Nazi."
Cole writes that during the time of the COTTAGE TO LET tour, "Alastair
became a sort of father figure for me. He also had
this wealth of acting experience and a career as an
elocution and drama lecturer behind him." Cole
credits Alastair with changing his broad cockney accent.
"He had this tremendous passion for teaching, especially to
young people entering the acting profession. ... He
was a tremendous influence on my career, but ... he never
formally coached me as an actor in the way a student might
be coached at drama school. ... one of his great
talents was his ability to pass on his wisdom in a subtle
almost imperceptible way."

As a theatre producer/director, Cole states that Alastair
"was also innovative in promoting his plays. He began
to put A-boards outside (the theatre) containing all the
critiques of the play. The good ones were printed in
black and the bad ones in red, so passers-by could
immediately compare them." "Alastair was
demanding as far as work was concerned and, if you were not
up to scratch, he would let you know it. ... he was such a
perfectionist that sometimes he just forgot how talented he
really was." "He would put his own money into
every play that he directed. He didn't mind rehearsing
in a room for three weeks, but he insisted that for the
fourth week he wanted a theatre, a stage, the set and the
props, so by the end of the fourth week we'd have run the
play for a week. He could be subtly harsh in his
direction occasionally.

LAUGHTER IN PARADISE, Cole says, "Alastair had a
fantastic scene" where he tries to get arrested for
shoplifting. "He did the whole scene in one take and
it was absolutely brilliant. There was no dialogue in
the scene and Alastair's performance harked back to the days
of the black-and-white silent comedy films of the 1920s."

SCROOGE, Cole writes, "Alastair's performance
throughout was outstanding and the final scenes of Scrooge's
redemption, when he is given another chance by the people he
has wronged, have always remained with me as an example of
what is meant by the term 'consummate professional'.
To my mind, he set a standard for portraying Scrooge to
which I feel that all actors should aspire but I doubt that
many can achieve."

BELLES OF ST. TRINIAN'S, Cole states: "Alastair
was initially asked to play the secondary role of Clarence
Fritton while [Gilliat and Launder] looked for a strong
female lead. Eventually, when the search seemed to be
getting nowhere, Alastair suggested, 'Why don't I play both
parts?' It was quite an innovative suggestion at the time
but after a preliminary investigation into whether the
existing technology could handle it, [Gilliat and Launder]
decided to go with the idea." Cole feels "for
the sheer pleasure it gave, I think THE BELLES OF ST.
TRINIAN'S may well have been the best [film] of all."

THE GREEN MAN, Cole says: "I went to see the play and
thought it would make a marvelous film, so I bought a copy
and showed it to Alastair and he thought the same. He
took it to [authors Gilliat and Launder] and said we would
like to make it into a film." Alastair directed
but was not given screen credit "because he did not have
trade-union accreditation as a film director. ... My
favorite scene was when I go to the house where Alastair's
character lives to ask him to call the police because I
think there is a body hidden in the piano in the house where
I am demonstrating a vacuum cleaner. I don't know at
that stage that he was involved in the crime. It is a
fast-paced scene combining my panic at having discovered a
body and Alastair's panic at trying to hide the fact that he
was an accomplice. ... We rehearsed it a few times and
he eventually told me, 'Forget about the lines, just
act.' On the final take we were both completely
ad-libbing but it worked well and turned out to be a
highly amusing scene."

Of Alastair's death, Cole writes, "I felt it personally
because of the enormous influence he had had on my life.
He was certainly my mentor and very much a father
figure. For an actor, it's not just a matter of
memorising a part, you need to think about what you are doing
and to maintain a certain stillness, and that was one of the
great things he taught me. On top of that, he was one of
my greatest friends. Over the years, we performed in 11
films and at least 9 stage plays together. He had a big,
awesome personality and was so wonderful to work with – and
always terribly funny. Of all the stage performances of
my career, it is the ones I did with Alastair that I seem to
look back on now with the greatest fondness. The two
that stand out most for me are DR. ANGELUS and MR.
BOLFRY. I think my performances in those were among the
best of my career and I owe that entirely to Alastair.
And if it wasn't for him, I might still have my cockney
accent! ... He was a meticulous craftsman and took
his work very seriously indeed but he was uncomfortable with
the fame that came from it."